Your Farm

After years of struggling with roller-coaster somatic cell count numbers and over-crowded pastures, Shelly and Jarrett Smith, father and son and Southeast Area members, decided it was finally time to take their dairy’s cow comfort to a new level.

“Our cows were crunched,” Jarrett says. “At times, we’d have anywhere between 175 to 200 cows on a 16-acre square.”

Last January, the Smiths began construction on a compost-bedded pack barn, an alternative type of dairy...

Dairy cows thrive on routine. They like to be milked at the same time, fed at the same time and don’t like when their daily routine is disrupted.

Dairy Farmers of America members Mike and Heather Haines followed that type of routine until they decided to make a drastic change at their dairy in Sigourney, Iowa. The Haineses switched from milking their herd of 180 Holsteins in a swing-10 parabone parlor to Lely’s Astronaut A4 I-flow robotic milking machines.

Watson Dorn and his wife, Lisa, are the third generation to work the family farm, Hickory Hill Milk, in Edgefield, S.C. The family runs the 250-cow operation with eight full-time employees. Watson’s father, Jim, is retired from the farm, but stays involved with the operation.

1760

The year Watson Dorn’s ancestors came to the United States from Germany. In 1764, they purchased the land where the family dairies today.

Joyce Bupp and her husband, Leroy, have been dairying since 1964 on their operation in Seven Valleys, Pa. Milking 200 cows, the couple also farms 750 acres of corn, alfalfa, soybeans, small grain and grass hay. Joyce stays involved in the industry as a member of Cattlemen’s Beef Board for her area, Pennsylvania Dairy Stakeholders, Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association board, Pennsylvania...